Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie [52]
‘Since then there’s been Switzerland. Thought I might get on the track of some fatal accident there, but nothing doing. And there’s nothing in Wallingford either.’
‘So Anne Meredith is acquitted?’ asked Poirot.
Battle hesitated.
‘I wouldn’t say that. There’s something…There’s a scared look about her that can’t quite be accounted for by panic over Shaitana. She’s too watchful. Too much on the alert. I’d swear there was something. But there it is—she’s led a perfectly blameless life.’
Mrs Oliver took a deep breath—a breath of pure enjoyment.
‘And yet,’ she said, ‘Anne Meredith was in the house when a woman took poison by mistake and died.’
She had nothing to complain of in the effect her words produced.
Superintendent Battle spun round in his chair and stared at her in amazement.
‘Is this true, Mrs Oliver? How do you know?’
‘I’ve been sleuthing,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I get on with girls. I went down to see those two and told them a cock-and-bull story about suspecting Dr Roberts. The Rhoda girl was friendly—oh, and rather impressed by thinking I was a celebrity. The little Meredith hated my coming and showed it quite plainly. She was suspicious. Why should she be if she hadn’t got anything to hide? I asked either of them to come and see me in London. The Rhoda girl did. And she blurted the whole thing out. How Anne had been rude to me the other day because something I’d said had reminded her of a painful incident, and then she went on to describe the incident.’
‘Did she say when and where it happened?’
‘Three years ago in Devonshire.’
The superintendent muttered something under his breath and scribbled on his pad. His wooden calm was shaken.
Mrs Oliver sat enjoying her triumph. It was a moment of great sweetness to her.
‘I take off my hat to you, Mrs Oliver,’ he said. ‘You’ve put one over on us this time. That is very valuable information. And it just shows how easily you can miss a thing.’
He frowned a little.
‘She can’t have been there—wherever it was—long. A couple of months at most. It must have been between the Isle of Wight and going to Miss Dawes. Yes, that could be it right enough. Naturally Mrs Eldon’s sister only remembers she went off to a place in Devonshire—she doesn’t remember exactly who or where.’
‘Tell me,’ said Poirot, ‘was this Mrs Eldon an untidy woman?’
Battle bent a curious gaze upon him.
‘It’s odd your saying that, M. Poirot. I don’t see how you could have known. The sister was rather a precise party. In talking I remember her saying “My sister is so dreadfully untidy and slapdash.” But how did you know?’
‘Because she needed a mother’s-help,’ said Mrs Oliver.
Poirot shook his head.
‘No, no, it was not that. It is of no moment. I was only curious. Continue, Superintendent Battle.’
‘In the same way,’ went on Battle, ‘I took it for granted that she went to Miss Dawes straight from the Isle of Wight. She’s sly, that girl. She deceived me all right. Lying the whole time.’
‘Lying is not always a sign of guilt,’ said Poirot.
‘I know that, M. Poirot. There’s the natural liar. I should say she was one, as a matter of fact. Always says the thing that sounds best. But all the same it’s a pretty grave risk to take, suppressing facts like that.’
‘She wouldn’t know you had any idea of past crimes,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘That’s all the more reason for not suppressing that little piece of information. It must have been accepted as a bona fide case of accidental death, so she’d nothing to fear—unless she were guilty.’
‘Unless she were guilty of the Devonshire death, yes,’ said Poirot.
Battle turned to him.
‘Oh, I know. Even if that accidental death turns out to be not so accidental, it doesn’t follow that she killed Shaitana. But these other murders are murders too. I want to be able to bring home a crime to the person responsible